Pippin... heard Gandalf singing softly to himself, murmuring brief snatches of rhyme in many tongues, as the miles ran under them. At last the wizard passed into a song of which the hobbit caught the words: a few lines came clear to his ears through the rushing of the wind:

Gondor after the Kings declined into a "Middle Age" of fading knowledge, and simpler skills. Communications depended on messengers and errand-riders, or in times of urgency upon beacons, and if the Stones of Anor and Orthanc were still guarded as treasures out of the past, known to exist only by a few, the Seven Stones of old were by the people generally forgotten, and the rhymes of lore that spoke of them were if remembered no longer understood; their operations were transformed in legend into the Elvish powers of the ancient kings with their piercing eyes, and the swift birdlike spirits that attended on them, bringing them news or bearing their messages.

1Star, as emblem:... Seven stars of Elendil and his captains... originally represented the single stars on the banners of each of seven ships (of 9) that bore a palantír... in Gondor the seven stars were set about a white-flowered tree, over which the Kings set a winged crown... had five [rays]....